Risk and Resilience

The Risk and Resilience (RISK) Program aims to better understand the risks to economic, ecological, and social systems arising from global change and to help transform the ways in which societies manage them.

Society needs to make effective responses to the risks associated with global change. To that end, scientists must understand the systemic and dynamic linkages of environmental, social, and economic risks and how these are impacted by different policy measures. This will enable risk management and governance systems to be improved in order to facilitate long-term sustainable development.

Systems analysis, risk modeling, and transformative governance are fundamental to the mission of Risk & Resilience (RISK). The Program examines environmental and socioeconomic risks and policy options across multiple spatial and temporal scales to provide an analytical foundation for improved management and governance of natural disasters, address climate change, and ease the technological and ecological transitions to sustainability.

The Program has four specific goals:

To advance the conceptual and methodological development of risk and vulnerability research

To carry out selected risk and vulnerability assessments

To carry out integrative stakeholder-led case studies, and

To develop interactive tools for training on vulnerability and adaptation.

The program builds on the methodologies, activities and experience gained from the previous IIASA Risk, Modeling and Society (RMS) and Risk, Policy and Vulnerability Programs. It integrates across other IIASA programs and links closely with the vulnerability/resilience research communities.

This thematic research area focuses on developing policy-relevant methodological insight for informing risk management and adaptation strategies; the aim of which is to support the multi-scale integration of agendas on risk management, climate change adaptation and sustainable socio-economic development. More

The Governance in Transition research theme analyzes how governance structures shape decisions and subsequent outcomes by building on and contributing to research on decision-making processes, public acceptance, risk perception, cognitive biases, and cultural perspectives, as well as participatory governance design. More